Friday, 4 October 2013

Aftermath and the Individual – 9.03m Review

Aftermath and the Individual – 9.03m

By Owen Jones (Independent Games Addict)

With a whole bunch of triple-A
titles being released it’s quite easy to forget about indie games entirely,
and with a sale on dedicated to games you might miss (Not on Steam Sale) this is a great
shame. One such game is 9.03m, a game that appeared on Desura the other day.
Knowing little about it I bought it because:

a

a)It’s a self proclaimed art game and I’m a
lover of all things abstract

b b)Half (yes, that’s 50%) of the proceeds from
this game go to Aid For Japan and I’m a sucker for feeling good about myself.

If these aren’t things
that appeal to you then you probably won’t enjoy 9.03m (you heartless
bastard). If these things do appeal to you then here’s a trailer for you:

So as you can see the game is shamelessly depressing, not
afraid to pull at your heartstrings or roll out the piano chords. If the game
was in another developer’s hands it’s possible I’d be telling you how
pretentious or cheesy it is, but Space Budgie have handled the subject in a
mature and effective manner.

The game takes place on a San Francisco beach (that was the
golden gate bridge you saw in the trailer) where you explore the remnants of
the lives that were destroyed when a tsunami hit Japan in 2011. It’s at this
point in time that if you’re of any geographical knowledge more advanced than
being aware that the world is round, you’ll realize that San Francisco is
(believe it or not) not in fact in Japan. But if you’re convinced that somewhere
along the line an awful mistake has been made then you’ll be wrong, because I’m
told that debris from the disaster genuinely did turn up on the shore of San
Francisco. If that isn’t a story that deserves to be turned into a (kind of)
exploration based game than I don’t know what is.

You know something's arty when it opens with a full moon reflected in the sea...

This wonder-‘em-up consists of walking (duh) along aforementioned
beach in search of butterflies. Finding these butterflies consists of following
a trail of lights to find a silhouette that will fade to leave behind an object
that acts as the final remnant of their existence. Once you have closely
examined the object is shall be replaced by a butterfly that will fly away. The
tide will be lowered and the process repeated.

This is such a simple mechanic that provides little challenge,
so in theory it should soon become repetitive or dull, but in reality the truth
is anything but. It’s a core mechanic that’s incredibly effective. The imagery
is clear, yet incredibly moving at the same time. I’ll try not to spoil
anything, but one encounter involving a baby made my heart drop and I uttered audible
protest at what I knew the game was about to present.
Other than that there isn't much here, which by no means is a criticism, the minimalistic features work to 9.03m's advantage. The sound effects are great too, the sea sounds believable and like it's usual calming self. The music also works well, normally soppy piano chords or strings, but is suitably sombre for a game dealing with such sombre issues

To those yanks reading, this is a football, not a sockball, or whatever the hell you call it

I thankfully managed to
avoid blubbering like a baby, but the fact that it put my entire life into
perspective is a testament to how well Space Budgie have executed 9.03m. I need
not provide any further explanation other than it made my grateful to have my
chief concern being that it was difficult to find the key that takes screenshots
on fraps in the dark.

The art style is also worth noting. Consisting mainly of
various shades of blue it either is reminiscent of the colour of the sea or
just looks cool, but either way it really added flavour to the whole
experience.

The greatest triumph of the game, however, is how it
humanizes a statistic. Joseph Stalin once said that the death of one man is a
tragedy but the death of a million men is a statistic, and that’s ever-present
here. To see the damage the tsunami had on individuals will always be far
more moving than reading the number of deaths or the cost of the damage, and in that
respect I don’t think there’s anything quite like 9.03m.
It also touches upon
aftermath which is something that’s sadly rarely present in a medium so focused
on the here and now. I don’t really think I understood just what the
impact of the tsunami was before playing this game, thinking about what
disasters such as this mean to individuals has always been present in my mind,
but it somehow seems so much more real now.

Well he looks pretty blue...

It’s rather unfortunate that 9.03m suffers from the Achilles’
heel of indie games, namely it’s short and costs too much money, as despite being £1.99 the
game is only 10 minutes long. However if this does put you off the game then I
refer you to my earlier comment that half of the proceeds currently go to Aid
For Japan (I say currently because that may even become 100% some day, or so I
believe). Aid For Japan is certainly a worthy cause that helps children who
were made orphans by the disaster, so if you look at it as a donation that gives
you a great game rather than a ten minute game for £2 then it’s actually a
pretty good deal.

So 9.03m is a game that not many people will hear of which
is sad because it’s a really thought-provoking and tender game. It’s tragic and
glum and is far from a traditional game, but it’s an experience that genuinely
had an impact on me, and not many games can say that.